I know that auto insurance companies replace windshields for low or no cost because it is cheaper than paying after the windshield pays. But how likely is a cracked windshield to fail?

We went on a short trip this weekend and during the trip the windshield on my 1999 Suburban cracked - weird crack, about 3" horizontal, then a 3-4" vertical crack. I scheduled to have it replaced but they can't do it before next Monday and we're supposed to drive downstate later this week.

Is it safe to take this vehicle or should we take the other one - that I hate traveling in because the seats are so uncomfortable?

I know of a map of Seattle from 1890 that should go to an archive in the state. According to WorldCat.org, the only place that has this map archived is Harvard University. While the map is not mine, I can probably convince the owners to donate it to a historical archive or association.

If anyone here has contacts with locations in Washington state appropriate for a historical piece like this, please let me know!

After a U.S.-based "critical infrastructure" company discovered in 2012 its computer systems were being accessed from China, its security personnel caught the culprit ultimately responsible: Not a hacker from the Middle Kingdom but one of the company's own employees sitting right at his desk in the United States.

<SNIP>

Investigators then discovered Bob had "physically FedExed his RSA token to China so that the third-party contractor could log-in under his credentials during the workday," wrote Andrew Valentine, a senior forensic investigator for Verizon.

Bob had hired a programming firm in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang to do his work. His helpers half a world away worked overnight on a schedule imitating an average 9-to-5 workday in the United States. He paid them one-fifth of his six-figure salary, according to Verizon.

And over the past several years, Bob received excellent performance reviews of his "clean, well written" coding. He had even been noted as "the best developer in the building."

I have a lot of people that call me who either have blocked their numbers or whose numbers I don't have in my system, so I have to answer even if it's an unrecognized number. So I get to talk to the Indian guys who claim that they are calling from the "Microsoft Service Center" to help me for free.

I've told them not to call, put in complaints with the Do Not Call List, cussed at them and hung up on them. Nothing worked - once a "supervisor" called back to try to convince me that my (non-existent) problem with my computer was serious enough to allow him to access my computer.

A month or so ago I was sort of loopy on pain drugs and when they called I cracked up and laughed at the guy. He got pissed and hung up. Just now, another of them called, same thing. That's the quickest results I've gotten from anything having to do with them.

Not my video - but it is really nice and relaxing. The link was sent to me since my great great grandfather had a sawmill in the area between Cowichan Lake and Duncan on Vancouver Island.

If you can spare 19 minutes to watch a video of a flight around the southern tip of Vancouver Island you won’t be disappointed ……..

Well worth watching. Excellent captioning of geographical locations.

Airplane fans will appreciate this as will lovers of Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands.

NOTE - Vimeo will not let me link to the video. Go to http://vimeo.com/ and search for Vancouver Island - the video is entitled "The Best Seat on the Planet - for exploring Victoria & Southern
Vancouver Island"

Just before our wet weather began I had the Mustang ll out on a
Beautiful afternoon flight with a couple of wing-mounted cameras going.
This video is the result of that afternoon’s flight.

No I don’t work for the BC Tourist department. I just love the land
(and water) that I am so privileged to fly over, and made so much more
enjoyable by the greatest airplane design around. Do I sound a bit
biased? ha.

I started out with an hour and twenty minutes and ended up with
nineteen. I just couldn't get it any shorter and even so we miss some
great stuff. Still, I think the nineteen minutes is worth it.

The Best Seat on the Planet - for exploring Victoria & Southern
Vancouver Island